Thursday 21st September – windsurfing ** The Manor – sunny periods

22.95 kt. max, 19.94 kt. ave., 8 kt. hr., 16.51 kt. mile, 23.60 km., 12.27 kt. alpha.

A day that promised so much actually delivered very little – nothing new there :( The forecast had said southerly winds of 20 mph all day with sunshine but ended up with an hour of marginal planing conditions! We agreed to meet at The Manor car park arriving at 9.45 and Michael Galbraith was already there! I got my favourite parking space and the wind seemed to be building so I rigged 7.8 on the 133lt. There were a few hours to high water, lovely sunshine and only one sea fisherman at the other end of the bay, so looking good:) Al Wiz was first out on the water and was going OK on 7m, then Michael went out on 7.5 and had a good hour. I then headed out but the wind was too light for this set-up so came and swopped to the 147lt. This was still not working, by this time Roger Vickers, Peter Cutts, Mark Smalling, Nathan Cozens and Henry Catling had arrived, all rigged apart from Peter who went for a walk with his camera to Landguard Nature Reserve. I then came ashore and rigged 8.5 which was alright for a while. I had a broad reach two miles down the coast seeing a lovely old sailing barge. It was then a beat back as the wind dropped. That was it for planing with people packing up now. Mark Swain came down but didn’t rig, Roger and Mark Smalling rigged but didn’t sail. Nathan and Henry sailed but didn’t have much fun. Mag biked down with a delicious sandwich and the sun disappeared cooling right off:( The breeze seemed to build so I had another try, sadly the wind was too light and the tide had turned so lost a groyne but I did spot a seal. I caught the rocks near the beach and was lucky not to get washed up on the them! Thanks to Mark Smalling for helping me ashore:) That’s it for wind for a while but we are off in the camper for a couple of weeks:)

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